A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday came closer to clearing the way for more than 50,000 current and former college athletes to finally receive their shares of a $208.7 million legal settlement with the NCAA and 11 major conferences concerning the association’s current compensation limits…

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have developed a list of roughly 53,000 football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball players who are set to get some share of the settlement money, according to Wednesday’s ruling. Those who played their sport for four years will get an average of about $6,000 apiece, the ruling said.

The reason the players are about to receive settlement relief: “The damages settlement covers scholarship athletes in Division I men’s basketball, Division I women’s basketball or Bowl Subdivision football whose award was limited by NCAA rules to basically tuition, room, board, books and fees.” In other words, the NCAA directed schools to collude and limit the labor market in violation of federal antitrust law.

And, remember, kids, this is a settlement, so you won’t hear Donald Remy crowing about how this is some sort of vindication for the NCAA.

So, Dennis Dodd is reporting that Proposal 2018-106, which would require any program accepting a graduate transfer in football, men’s basketball or women’s basketball to commit to a scholarship for two years rather than one, is meeting some resistance.

Color me surprised. After all, how could anyone object to its noble concerns?

“This [proposal] has been in the works for a while,” said Gregg Clifton, a Phoenix-based attorney. “The concern, frankly, is you’re seeing kids not doing it for the right reason. They’re not doing anything to pursue a degree…”

Pay no attention to those one-and-done youngsters dribbling over there.

This is a joke, of course. The concern isn’t over academics. It’s the mid-majors pissed off by bigger programs raiding their kids that are driving this. I don’t know who wins this fight ultimately, but you can bet that whoever emerges victorious will label it a big win for student-athletes.

I think the last year was a step toward a right direction for the program. Under Butch Jones, I just felt like there were a lot of people in administrative roles that shouldn’t be there. That shouldn’t be working with kids. They were just there for their own selfish gain.

When you say people were in administrative roles that shouldn’t be there, what do you mean?

I just felt like with the old, I don’t want to say staff, because the staff was straight. The people around the program, whether it be the AD or whatever, it wasn’t the right fit for what Tennessee wants to do. Tennessee wants to be an elite, championship-winning program. In my opinion, they just didn’t go about it the right way…

What was it like before?

Man, we’d have football twice a week during the offseason. We’d have football meetings twice a week. Also, you know, the rules have changed over time. Last year, we had football in the mornings and in the afternoons. We were getting it in twice a day, specifically just football stuff. So, I feel like at the old place, it was about the fluff and having cool this, cool that. We need to have new TVs. We were changing TVs like every week. Or we need new wallpaper.

No, we need to win games, man. (Laughs). It was just the wrong thing they cared about.

Those of you who wonder where schools could find money to pay student-athletes need to consider that it might not be as hard as you think. This is what outfits that don’t have to pay market compensation to the hired help do with the savings. Me, I’m thinking paying that star running back instead of the TV dude might just work fine.